Summer 2021 Course Descriptions

Summer 2021 Courses

ENG 202 Writing About Literature 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 101. BCOM BLND. Students select one of two meetings to attend.

CRN: 30250 Days/times: MTWR 12:00-01:50 pm. Instructor: Bell, Michael Patrick

Or…"How Nerds Won Culture.” This section of English 202 involves critical inquiry into the effects of literature that created and sustains what we might term “nerd culture”: the activities, properties, concerns, and texts of what is arguably the dominant mode of contemporary narrative production. The genres under our purview will include horror, fantasy, and science-fiction, and their various combinations and offshoots. The specific forms we will study will of course include the written word, but because so much of our contemporary culture is expressed and reflected in the visual realm, we will go beyond the page to include film, TV, and games.


All of our study will assume that whatever form it takes, fictional narrative has the power to construct and inform our worldly experience, even our reality. To sometimes great extent, we model our identities on literary stories, and build our perspectives from them. By making connection to our experiences and histories, stories illuminate the world, permitting us to see more texture and variety and possibility in our lives. Here in the United States, in the early 21st century, much of this on-going narrative field is being informed by the nerds (us), and we will consider these narratives as literature worthy of our close attention. Through intensive reading, discussion, activity, and writing we will further develop our ability to make meaning from these texts, focusing our analyses through formal critical practices as well as rigorous play and experimentation. You will emerge from the course a stronger analytic writer and reader with greater appreciation of the power of literature to bring you to deeper self-knowledge and increased awareness of a wider, richer, more complex world.


ALL TEXTS PROVIDED OR SHARED FOR FREE, including Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu; The Call of Cthulhu (short story and table-top RPG); Star Wars (film); episodes of Star Trek, What We Do in the Shadows, Batman the Animated Series, and Adventure Time (TV), Roadside Picnic, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. There will also be a video game. We will negotiate the title in class.

ASSIGNMENTS: In addition to reading assignments and participation in class activities, requirements will comprise one formal analytical paper, several informal writing assignments, and a final project

 

ENG 302 Technical Writing 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 101; junior standing. WP3.

CRN: 30145 Instructor: Sarkar, Rachel Diane

ASNC WP3.

Welcome to English 302. This course addresses the essential elements of technical writing—or writing in action. We’ll explore ways to use writing skills to accomplish personal, professional, and ideological goals. In the process, we’ll also consider the use of humor, empathy, ethics, and storytelling in technical writing.

I have an underlying objective for English 302 (really for every class I teach): to explore the power of language to change people, events, and self.

Objectives for English 302:

  • Analyze and communicate ideas effectively in oral, written, and visual forms.
  • Focus on the importance of careful reading in technical writing.
  • Clarify the purposes and contexts for documents.
  • Expand your strategies for revising, editing, and proofreading.
  • Write effectively in a variety of genres using appropriate conventions.
  • Develop an understanding of the needs and interests of a wide range of readers.
  • Create compelling application materials aimed at specific positions and organizations.
  • Apply simple design elements that dramatically increase the usability of your documents.
  • Gain approaches for working on collaborative projects.
  • Ponder some of the effects of social media and technology on technical writing.
  • Brainstorm ideas for incorporating empathy and humor in written materials.
  • Ask more questions because life is confusing and so are writing projects.

Assignments

English 302 is a writing intensive class, requiring many revised pages during the term. The final portfolio of revised work makes up a significant portion of the course grade. Ideally, the portfolio will help you in the world beyond our campus. During the quarter, you can find all major assignments posted on Canvas, entirely in the Modules section.

  • Final Portfolio: 30%
  • Assignments (major assignments, exercises, peer reviews, etc.): 70%

Reading Material: To ensure engagement, please complete readings according to our weekly schedule.

Late Work: Please do your best to submit assignments on-time. This'll keep you on track and ultimately reduce stress.

Plagiarism: I’m interested in your ideas and your writing. Plagiarism wastes your time and robs you of the point of education—actual learning. The university’s academic dishonesty policy states: “students shall not claim as their own achievements, work or thoughts of others, nor shall they be a party to such claims.” If you are found guilty of academic dishonesty by either plagiarizing someone’s work or allowing your own work to be misused by another, you will automatically fail this course and have to take it again. A letter will be kept in your permanent file in the registrar’s office.

Canvas Alert

In an effort to simplify and clarify access to course materials, I’m using the Modules and Announcements for almost everything. Please email me if you can’t find an assignment or can’t access information, and I will promptly address the concern.

CRN: 30161  Days/times: MTWR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Lewis, Justin A. 

SYNC WP3. Optional Zoom meetings recorded for later viewing.

In ENG 302, we will be learning about and practicing technical communication through the study of rhetorical principles, audience analysis and user experience design (UXD). We will be learning about rhetorical problem-solving principles and applying them to diverse professional writing tasks and situations. In other words, in this class, you will be learning about the conventions for writing, speaking and designing appropriate workplace documents and communications.

 

ENG 310 Seminar: The Long 19th Century 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 202. The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. If you have taken ENG 310 or ENG 320, do not take ENG 310. SYNC. Cross-listed with ENG 320.

CRN: 30716 Days/times: MTWR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Wise, Christopher

The 19th century, which some have dubbed “the golden age of racism,” was the apex of the era of expanding European capital and imperialism. Already wealthy nations like England, France, Holland, and other powers increased their wealth multifold by conquering and colonizing lands belonging to the peoples of Africa, India, South America, Asia, and other places. Though it is not possible to study every nation’s literature during this era, it is possible to study particular cases in order to gain a better sense of what took place during this time. Our course in 19th Century literature will therefore focus on the 19th century literature of France and West Africa during the era of imperial conquest. We will read the literature of Europeans who explored West Africa and produced the new literary genre of “The Timbuktu Narrative,” and we will also read the literature of those who stayed home and merely enjoyed the opulent wealth that was produced by the looting and plundering that took place. In contrast to European travelers’ experience of West Africa, we will also take a look at some of the literature that African peoples themselves wrote at this time. Finally, we will also discuss Edward W. Said’s Orientalism with special reference to the figure of Scheherazade from Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Thousand and One Nights, Vaslav Nijinsky and Sergei Diaghilev’s popular ballet Scheherazade, and Edgar Allen Poe’s American variation “The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade.” 

Course Requirements

The format of this course will be totally asynchronous. Students will listen to video-lectures at their own pace and leisure, and then they will turn in their reading journals to me. They will also write a formal paper of 4-5 pages, take an essay exam, and other focused writing assignments. Although this is a six-week class, students will also have the option of completing the course in nine weeks due to the flexibility gained from the course being delivered on-line.

Texts:

  • Sir Richard Burton (trans), The Thousand and One Nights (excerpts)
  • Nijinsky / Diaghilev, Scheherazade  
  • Edgar Allen Poe, The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade
  • Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert In Egypt  
  • Jean-Michel Dijan, The Manuscripts of Timbuktu
  • Gustave Flaubert, Three Tales
  • Angel Flores (ed), The Anchor Anthology of French Poetry: From Nerval to Valéry in English Translation  
  • Emile Zola, The Masterpiece
  • Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

 

ENG 311 Seminar: The 20-21st Century 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 202. The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. Do not take ENG 311 if you have already taken ENG 321 or 311. Optional Zoom meetings recorded for later viewing. SYNC. Cross-listed with ENG 321.

CRN: 30492 Days/times: MTWR  10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Rivera, Lysa

Visionary Fictions: Black and Brown Elsewheres

In her powerful introduction to Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, Walidah Imarisha defines “visionary fiction” as a subversive form of speculative fiction that weds the power of the imagination with the grit of social justice. In doing so it stands as a testament to the power of the imagination to decolonize the mind, a necessary first step in building alternatives and creating communities. This summer course will explore the other worlds and alternative spaces made possible by visionary fiction, and it will do so by centering the voices and thoughts of Chicanx and black U.S. writers. We will work across genres by considering short fiction, novels, and sonic pathways that merge music and words. Students will maintain weekly electronic reading journals, collaborate in the production of a course website (using WWU's Wordpress platform), and complete a final paper on a topic and text that interests them most.

 

 

ENG 313 Critical Theories & Prac I 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 202. SYNC.

CRN: 30404 Days/times: MTWR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Cushman, Jeremy W.

The thing about engaging with what gets called ‘theory’ or ‘philosophy’ is that it gives us the chance to jump into a pretty heated and certainly long-running squabble. And it’s a squabble that, whether you’re currently conscious of it or not, shapes how you understand and respond to the worlds in which you act. This is a squabble that, to say the least, matters.

So the whole point to our time together this summer is all about giving you the chance to work out the possible ways ‘theory’ or ‘philosophy’ can help you make different, maybe even a more useful kinds of sense of the differing ‘texts’ you encounter. That is, I want the class to help you practice reading all the varied kinds of material that matters to you across and with this ancient squabble called ‘theory’—material like Marvel movies, long emails from the university’s president, short stories, intimidating healthcare documentation, a Netflix series, and so on. Theory, even (and I think especially) theory that predates Christianity and the Enlightenment, has an awful lot to say to us about the critical ways we make meaning out of the ‘texts’ or material that matters to us.

So we’ll jump into this squabble around 500 BCE, and try to make some sense of the people who get called the ‘Pre-socratics,’ or the Sophists. We don’t have much from these writers and thinkers, just torn fragments of text and notes that some of their students left behind. But what we do have is wonderfully weird and sometimes profound. Their work seemingly anticipates what much of our own squabbles about truth, justice, and living in right relationship with the others and with the natural world.

Then we’ll turn to philosophers who, many say, have structured what we call the Western Tradition: Plato and his student Aristotle. The squabble between the Sophists and Plato/Aristotle is legit. So we’ll dwell here for a bit before turning to people that began to transform this squabble into wildly influentially ideas about political institutions, and who used it to invent lasting interpretations of Christianity that impact you whether you know it or not.

After that, we’ll quickly (because we don’t have time to go slow) make our way though others that jumped into the squabble as it carried on. These are thinkers, writers, ‘theorists,’ and ‘philosophers’ that, while you’ve maybe never read them, they’ve helped shape your underlying understanding of identity, reason, love, religion, history, and other giant conceptions that allow us to interpret our world one way rather than another. 

Texts: There’s no required texts to buy for the course because our original sources are in the ‘public domain,’ and I’ll be sending along the more contemporary essays about these texts.

Class Structure:

  • Monday: You’ll get an assigned text from one or two of our ‘theorists.’ You’ll also get a recorded, podcast-style, ‘lecture’ from me about that week’s ‘theorists.’
  • Wednesday: You’ll write responses to my prompts about that week’s reading and my ‘lecture’
  • Thursday: Early on in the class, I’ll send along examples of how to practice reading differing ‘texts’ or material across and with the ‘theorist’ and ‘philosophers’ that we’re engaging. About a quarter of the way through the class, I’ll start sending ‘texts’ and a prompt for you to do this kind of work on your own. That work will be ‘due’ the following Monday. Then it all starts again.

 

ENG 314 Critical Theories & Prac II 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 202. SYNC.

CRN: 31053 Days/times: MTWR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Lester, Mark

This course will focus on a series of questions concerning the nature, function, and value of literature: What exactly is a work of literature? How does it work? For whom does it have value? On what grounds should a work of literature be judged or assessed? Should it be conceived of strictly as an object of analysis (something to be interpreted and explained), or does the work of literature possess a distinct dynamic, critical, and constructive dimension of its own? To what kind of knowledge can authors and readers of literary works lay claim? Starting with Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, we will follow a number of different trajectories that will allow us to explore the intersections of literature, philosophy, science, politics, and literary analysis.

 

ENG 320 Survey: The Long 19th Century 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 101. The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. If you have taken ENG 310 or ENG 320, do not take ENG 320. SYNC. This course is cross-listed with ENG 310.

CRN: 30691 Days/times: MTWR 08:00-09:50 am Instructor: Wise, Christopher

The 19th century, which some have dubbed “the golden age of racism,” was the apex of the era of expanding European capital and imperialism. Already wealthy nations like England, France, Holland, and other powers increased their wealth multifold by conquering and colonizing lands belonging to the peoples of Africa, India, South America, Asia, and other places. Though it is not possible to study every nation’s literature during this era, it is possible to study particular cases in order to gain a better sense of what took place during this time. Our course in 19th Century literature will therefore focus on the 19th century literature of France and West Africa during the era of imperial conquest. We will read the literature of Europeans who explored West Africa and produced the new literary genre of “The Timbuktu Narrative,” and we will also read the literature of those who stayed home and merely enjoyed the opulent wealth that was produced by the looting and plundering that took place. In contrast to European travelers’ experience of West Africa, we will also take a look at some of the literature that African peoples themselves wrote at this time. Finally, we will also discuss Edward W. Said’s Orientalism with special reference to the figure of Scheherazade from Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Thousand and One Nights, Vaslav Nijinsky and Sergei Diaghilev’s popular ballet Scheherazade, and Edgar Allen Poe’s American variation “The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade.” 

Course Requirements

The format of this course will be totally asynchronous. Students will listen to video-lectures at their own pace and leisure, and then they will turn in their reading journals to me. They will also write a formal paper of 4-5 pages, take an essay exam, and other focused writing assignments. Although this is a six-week class, students will also have the option of completing the course in nine weeks due to the flexibility gained from the course being delivered on-line.

Texts:

  • Sir Richard Burton (trans), The Thousand and One Nights (excerpts)
  • Nijinsky / Diaghilev, Scheherazade
  • Edgar Allen Poe, The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade
  • Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert In Egypt
  • Jean-Michel Dijan, The Manuscripts of Timbuktu
  • Gustave Flaubert, Three Tales
  • Angel Flores (ed), The Anchor Anthology of French Poetry: From Nerval to Valéry in English Translation
  • Emile Zola, The Masterpiece
  • Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

 

ENG 321 Survey: The 20-21st Centuries 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 101. The seminar and survey time periods are not repeatable. If you have taken ENG 311 or ENG 321, do not take ENG 321. Optional Zoom meetings recorded for later viewing. SYNC. Cross-listed with 311.

CRN: 30717 Days/times: MTWR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Rivera, Lysa

Visionary Fictions: Black and Brown Elsewheres

In her powerful introduction to Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, Walidah Imarisha defines “visionary fiction” as a subversive form of speculative fiction that weds the power of the imagination with the grit of social justice. In doing so it stands as a testament to the power of the imagination to decolonize the mind, a necessary first step in building alternatives and creating communities. This summer course will explore the other worlds and alternative spaces made possible by visionary fiction, and it will do so by centering the voices and thoughts of Chicanx and black U.S. writers. We will work across genres by considering short fiction, novels, and sonic pathways that merge music and words. Students will maintain weekly electronic reading journals, collaborate in the production of a course website (using WWU's Wordpress platform), and complete a final paper on a topic and text that interests them most.

 

ENG 347 Studies in Young Adult Lit 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 202 or instructor permission. ASNC. Optional Zoom meetings; times voted on by class.

CRN: 30091 Instructor: Sheahan, Annmarie

With a focus on identity, community, and agency, this course will familiarize you with multiple genres and mediums of literature written for young adults (ages 12-20+) and will provide a survey of texts geared toward adolescent readers. Our work will explore texts by both well-known and lesser-known YA authors as we consider the relevance of young adult literature for both adolescent and adult readers. Together, we will read books by diverse writers and respond to these writers in diverse ways, privileging adolescent voice in understanding the development of identity and agency across varied communities and experiences. Throughout the course we will consider whose voices get heard in YA literature and how those voices offer insight into teen lives and experiences. We will also explore YA literature as a vehicle for critical literacy, equity, and inclusion, thinking about some of the social, political, and ideological issues that surround the field. As such, course texts, assignments, and discussions will be framed by critical perspectives acknowledging the importance of adolescent voice in unpacking systems of oppression and in imagining and creating more hopeful, equitable futures for young people.

In lieu of a traditional final, your culminating project for this course will take the form of a multi-genre, multi-modal creative project centered on a particular character’s path toward identity development, agency, and change.

COURSE FORMAT:

This course will be taught in an asynchronous format, with optional discussion meetings offered weekly. Times for these meetings TBA.

Required Whole Class Texts:

  • The Poet X (Elizabeth Acevedo)
  • Apple (Skin to the Core) (Eric Gansworth)
  • They Called Us Enemy (George Takei)
  • Punching the Air (Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam)

Required Choice of:

  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Benjamin Alire Sáenz) OR Felix Ever After (Kacen Callender) OR The Stars and the Blackness Between Them (Junauda Petrus)
  • Children of Blood and Bone (Tomi Adeyemi) OR We Set the Dark On Fire (Tehlor Kay Mejia) OR An Ember in the Ashes (Sabaa Tahir)

Not Required: Excerpts from #NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women (Lisa Charleyboy and MaryBeth Leatherdale.

ENG 350 Intro to Creative Writing 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 101.

CRN: 30085 Days/times: MTW 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Yeasting, Jeanne Ellen

BLND. TW synchronous; M some sync or async sessions; students may be broken into teams for part of the quarter.

This introductory creative writing course combines a creative component and the study of literature from a writer’s perspective. This course will introduce you to the process of creative writing – the reading, brainstorming, drafting, use of craft elements, analysis, revising, re-imagining and discipline that are essential for writers. You’ll be introduced to, and asked to experiment with, various forms of poetry and creative nonfiction. Students will read and study the craft of range of poets and nonfiction writers, and use their texts as catalysts for generating and revising their own work. We’ll study the work of some earlier practitioners, as well as contemporary authors. Class will be a mixture of discussion of assigned writing models, writing exercises, and workshops.

ASSIGNMENTS: Assignments include considerable reading of writing model poems and creative nonfiction; weekly writing and revising of original poetry and creative nonfiction; giving detailed peer feedback, including written feedback letters; and completing a Final project. Students may be required to work on a collaborative project.

EVALUATION: Based primarily on active, attentive class participation and fulfillment of assignments, including a Final Project.

REQUIRED TEXTS: all e-book versions welcome!

  • The Poet’s Companion, edited by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux. W.W. Norton. Paperback: ISBN: 978-0393316544; e-text: Kindle; Apple Books
  • In Short, edited by Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones. W.W. Norton. Paperback: ISBN: 978-0393314922
  • Various poems and other texts on Canvas
CRN: 31054 Days/times: MTWR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: McGuire, Simon Leonard

SYNC. Optional Zoom meetings recorded for later viewing.


In this course we will explore, discuss, practice and revise forms of poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction. I'll introduce you to exercises in ekphrasis (writing about art), traditional forms, poetry machines and current trends in contemporary poetics (visual poetry, collaborative writing methods, conceptual writing, multilingual pieces.). While we all will work remotely, everyone will be required to participate each week in small group discussion forums to read and responds to assignments and complete attentive peer reviews. This course uses Imaginative Writing (4th ed.) as a main text, and I will offer other documents and sources on Canvas.

 

ENG 351 Intro to Fiction Writing 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 350. BLND. MTW sync; R asyn.

CRN: 30132 Days/times: MTW 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Colen, Elizabeth Jane

In this introductory fiction course, students will analyze all aspects of the short story form, including plot, point of view, characterization, setting, and conflict, as well as the sonic qualities of language; learn how these tools are combined to best effect in the service of storytelling; develop a language for discussing the interplay of a writer’s craft and content; and engage with weekly writing exercises. The final project will be a portfolio that includes 10-15 pages (2500-4000 words) of one fully revised, well-crafted story.

ENG 353 Introduction to Poetry Writing 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 350. SYNC. Class Meetings TH 11, Individual Conferences MW

CRN:30635 Days/times: MTWR 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Shipley, Ely

This course focuses on the practice of reading and writing poetry. While the primary concern is student writing, we work from the basis that in order to become better writers, we also must become better readers. We will explore a range of poetic traditions and contemporary developments and spend the quarter reading, writing, and discussing poetry through focusing on elements such as metaphor, image, rhythm, sound, line, and dramatic tension. You will be responsible for not only submitting original work, but also for offering thoughtful observations to each work discussed. We become better writers through reading, thinking and feeling intensely, learning from our own work, the work of others, and above all, by practicing.

 

ENG 364 Introduction to Film Studies 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 101. Synchronous Zoom meetings on Mondays and Thursdays, 2:00 – 3:50 pm. Film screenings and other works asynchronous.

CRN: 30638 Days/times: MR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Odabasi, Eren

This course is designed to provide an introduction to the key components of film expression such as cinematography, sound, editing, and production design. We will closely analyze several canonical films from around the world, utilizing the fundamental concepts and definitions covered in the course units. Furthermore, we will explore cinema’s relationship to other arts and various media forms.
 
More specific course objectives:

  •  Enrich your ability to look and listen closely to motion pictures
  • Understand and apply a range of critical and cultural theories to the study of cinema
  • Explore a range of film genres, national cinemas, historical periods, and auteurs, with an emphasis on expanding the frame from Hollywood to a more diverse world cinema
  • Engage with local film cultures and other communities rooted in cinephilia

Textbook:

David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Jeff Smith. Film Art: An Introduction, 12th edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education, 2019.

You are welcome to use an older edition, a used copy, or the e-book version.

ENG 370 Introduction to Language 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 101.

CRN: 30111 Days/times: T 02:00-03:30 pm Instructor: Hardman, Pam

BLND. T synchoronous 2-3:30. Additional hours ASNC.

This course will introduce students to the key principles of linguistics and the cultural use of language. We will start by examining the fundamentals of semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. We will then explore issues of regional, racial and gender differences, dialect variation, language acquisition, and historical change. We’ll look at language as a complex, messy, ever-changing part of human experience.

ASSIGNMENTS: Mid-term and final exams; written projects; exercise sets

TEXTS: Ohio State University, Language Files 12

 

ENG 406 Crit Thry:Post-Millennial Film 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: W synchoronous 10-11:50. Prereqs waived. Additional hours ASNC. BLND WP3.

CRN: 30783 Days/times: W 10:00-11:50 am Instructor: Dietrich, Dawn Y.

This course explores a range of post-millennial films (2010 and after), characterized by a response to technology’s ability to shape and redefine human subjectivity and identity. Harkening back to early cinema’s fascination with form, these recent films are distinct, in terms of the ways they utilize film technique and industry conventions to create a highly mediated cinematic experience. Moving beyond conventional narrative construction, these films create an interface between the film text and our daily interactions with smart technology, mobile and GPS systems, and artificial intelligence. The selected films, from varying levels of commercial cinema, utilize the filmic medium to create affective responses in a variety of contexts—with the goal of breaking down preconceived notions about how human subjectivity and identity are shifting in our current age of ubiquitous computing.

Specifically, the movies experiment with film form and conventions to develop material metaphors that demonstrate a form of visual argumentation, mediated relationships between human and non-human actors, and the extension of the human sensorium into virtual strata. Moving beyond the optical sensation of film, many of these movies highlight the affective experience of watching film, including the haptic responses that come from an embodied perspective. We will look at reception spaces in an expanded sense—from physical spaces dependent upon projectors and screens to “virtual spaces” that come from fluid immersion in TV, laptop, or handheld devices. Highly attuned to the embodied experience of viewers, these films privilege the body, senses, perceptive modalities, tactile, affective, and sensory motor perceptions in deeply creative ways. Thus, the course will focus on new films in the context of affective and new materialist theories.

Content Warning: Some of the films in the course deal explicitly with rape, graphic violence, racism, and sexism. I will provide content warnings ahead of viewings. Feel free to talk with me, if you want to know what to expect with each film and whether this course will work for you.

Course Expectations and Evaluation

In this course, I will be teaching you how to perform media-specific analysis of film and digital video within the post-millennial context. We will be reading contemporary film theory, which attempts to situate our current cultural moment in the larger stream of cinema history; and you will be working with the films closely to provide readings of their content and form. I ask that you come to class having viewed the film critically and having read the assigned reading—and then to be willing to share your thoughts, questions, and comments. This is especially important for those parts of the film that may seem difficult, puzzling, or provocative. It is okay not to have answers. In fact, it is much more useful to explore a film’s complexity or indeterminacy from different and multivalent perspectives than it is to reduce it to a single narrative. I’m organizing the course like an intimate movie club that gathers regularly for film discussions, which I hope you enjoy! My goal is to create an informal discussion format where any questions and comments can be asked of the group. This only works, of course, if you’re willing to share your perceptions and your experience of viewing the films, openly--and if you practice active listening when others speak about their interpretations.

In terms of course assignments, you’ll have the opportunity to write multi-modal blogs that will incorporate medium-specific analysis of the films, and you’ll also receive credit for attending the synchronous Zoom discussions.

Selected films from among the following:

  • Her, Spike Jonze (2013)
  • Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma (2019)
  • Locke, Stephen Knight (2013)
  • Get Out, Jordan Peele (2017)
  • Under the Skin, Jonathan Glazer (2013)
  • The Rider, Chloé Zhao (2017)
  • 13th, Ava DuVernay (2016)
  • Ex Machina, Alex Garland (2015)
  • Only Lovers Left Alive, Jim Jarmusch (2013)

 

Required Texts

  • Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses, Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener
  • Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, Vivian Sobchack

 

ENG 423 MajAuth: Creolizing the Brontes 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 202 plus three from: ENG 304-347, ENG 364, ENG 370, ENG 371; possible additional prerequisites relevant to topic. ASNC WP3.

CRN: 30636 Instructor: Anderson, Katherine J.

Creolizing the Brontes

Few nineteenth-century novels have the cultural staying power of the work of major Victorian authors Charlotte and Emily Brontë, two preacher’s daughters writing from the lonely moors of Yorkshire. Almost two hundred years later, we remain obsessed with their most famous creations: Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. These novels are more than the period-piece romances that Hollywood often makes them out to be, but what gives them their global resonance? At last count, Jane Eyre has been translated into at least 57 languages, at least 593 times. More importantly, both novels have provoked or inspired postcolonial retellings that grapple further with their intersectional depictions of gender, class, and race-based oppressions under the shadow of the British Empire.

This class examines the “creolization” of the Brontës’ novels, attending to histories of empire, imperialism, and globalization in direct relation to literary history and genealogy, and, conversely, to the role of imperialism and globalization in literary history. Sociologist Robin Cohen defines creolization as the process in which “participants select particular elements from incoming or inherited cultures, endow these with meanings different from those they possessed in the original cultures, and then creatively merge these to create new varieties that supersede the prior forms.” Alongside Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, we will read novels by authors from the Caribbean who speak back to, reinterpret, double-down on, or enter into conversation with the Brontës’ depictions of slavery and Western colonialism, creating new meanings and hybrid literary forms, such as the Caribbean Gothic, as they do so.

Course Objectives:

This course provides deep analysis of two of the most famous Victorian novels of the nineteenth century, as well as situating the Brontës’ work in relation to relevant cultural developments in nineteenth-century Britain and the postcolonial aftermath of empire. You will exit this class with a more sophisticated understanding of the Brontës’ contributions to literature, including their versions of literary realism and the Victorian Gothic; of nineteenth-century literary and imperial history; and of the “speaking back” that has occurred in postcolonial re-imaginings – or creolizations – of their representations of race and imperialism. This is a WP3 course; assignments emphasize writing, critical analysis, and research skills.

Student Learning Outcomes (what you’ll get from your work in this class):

  • Advanced ability to analyze literature and to relate its concerns and modes of expression to its historical context, as well as to the current contemporary moment.
  • Advanced capacity to compare and contrast texts of different forms or genres, making connections while noting evolutions in form, style, and content across a literary genealogy.
  • Advanced ability to perform and then apply proactive research in literary scholarship. • Advanced ability to write cogent literary criticism. • Increased autonomy in assessing literary texts and critical arguments.
  • Increased ability to participate in an ongoing academic conversation.
  • Increased self-awareness of personal reading, writing, and methodological practices.

Required Texts: Novels (which are listed in the order we’ll read them). You may use any edition. If you do choose to purchase the designated editions, they are available through the bookstore.

  • Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Norton, ISBN: 9780393975420)
  • Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (Norton Reissue, ISBN: 9780393960129)
  • Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (Norton, ISBN: 9780393284997)
  • Maryse Condé, Windward Heights (Soho, ISBN: 9781569472163)

Required scholarly articles available on Canvas.

Films: If possible, we’ll use Western’s library streaming service, but if the library can’t stream a film, you’ll need to locate it elsewhere:

  • Cary Joji Fukunaga, Jane Eyre (2011)
  • Jacques Tourneur, I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
  • Brendan Maher, Wide Sargasso Sea (2006)
  • Andrea Arnold, Wuthering Heights (2011)

 

ENG 459 Editing and Publishing 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354. Tues/Thurs 9-10 synchronous and the rest asynchronous.

CRN: 30429 Days/times: TR 09:00-09:50 am Instructor: Magee, Kelly Elizabeth 

This class will be split between two kinds of editing and publishing: the production of a zine and the production of a chapbook. You will choose a project that fits your interests and produce content for that publication, as writers, as well as learn how to perfect, publish, and market content as editors. As writer-editors, you’ll work collaboratively on presentations, providing feedback for peer work, soliciting each other for creative work and/or promotional materials, and constructing a final publication packet. You’ll consider and study the market, including your ideal audience, and design a project that speaks to that audience. By the end of the course, you will have had practice editing and revising as writers, line editors, copy editors, proofreaders, fact-checkers, marketers, and reviewers. The quarter will culminate in presentations of your final project, either a chapbook proposal packet or zine publication packet.

 

ENG 460 Multi-GenreWrit: 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 351, ENG 353 or ENG 354. One weekly synchronous meeting.

CRN: 30637 Days/times: MTWR 02:00-03:50 pm Instructor: Westhoff, Kami Dawn Marie

Playing with Form: In this course students will explore fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that utilizes a variety of forms and formats, including stories told through dictionary entries, essays through medical diagnoses, and poems as crossword puzzles. Students will engage in numerous writing exercises, discussions, peer response, and revision to create a portfolio of work that reconsiders established boundaries of form.

 

ENG 464 Film Stds: 5cr

Notes and Prerequisites: ENG 364 or instructor permission. SYNC WP3.

CRN: 30784 Days/times: MTWR 12:00-01:50 pm Instructor: Prichard, Tony Alan

Kaiju: In this class we will examine how Kaiju films present a unique intersection of the history of special effects, world politics and environmental concerns. Working with the meaning of Kaiju as “strange creature” we will examine how this concept has developed in films over the past century, with specific attention placed on how these films operate as “myths of the atomic age” and continue to inform thinking about the planet and life itself. Additionally we will explore how the genre’s fandom has impacted the genre especially in the case of student filmmakers who made early films which shaped them and their later work.